Folding One Thousand Paper Cranes
by SycophantOfEvil
Summary: The folding of one thousand paper cranes will grant the folder a wish. Only one. Jack Harkness folds paper cranes, and wishes. Slight Janto.


It was Tosh that started him off.

(Starting with a square, fold it along the middle to form a splayed star, shooting off into every corner.)

He saw her, once, absentmindedly working at a sheet of paper, with no wasted energy. Absolute efficiency, until, when she finished, she held a paper bird in her palm. Completely pristine. Clean smooth lines. Perfect.

Her face was a mask of focused concentration. He had watched her, curiously, through the whole process. He wondered if she had noticed.

(Folding diamonds into the centre, squashing it until you have another square.)

She turned to look at him.

"If you fold a thousand, a wish is granted," she said smiling slightly, the corners of her mouth twitching upwards, forming a sickle shape, a crescent moon.

(Lifting the ends up to the middle, flattening the fold softly, surely with the pad of your thumb. Repeating it again on the other side. A calming, repeating pattern.)

She places several papers into her bag.

She leaves the bird on the desk. It isn't made of bright decorated paper. It isn't even high quality- just some random scrap she'd evidently found and moulded without even thinking.

Jack eyed the little paper bird and traced its contours with his fingers.

(Folding a triangle down, up again, then down again on the other side, leaving a deep crease, a scar on the paper.)

Rummaging for a piece of plain printer paper, white and pale, he began to fold.

His movements were slow and clumsy, nothing at all like Tosh's graceful, robotic symmetry. He made several mistakes, and, even though his end result looks more like a crumpled pallid pterodactyl than a delicate crane, he knew it counted. He only had nine hundred and ninety-nine left to make.

(A tricky fold, somehow making the square a diamond. Nothing you can't manage though. You give it a cheesy, determined grin and persevere.)

He never quite knew what he was wishing for. He didn't even know what Tosh was wishing for when he saw _her_ fold a crane.

At first he thinks he's wishing for Rose and the Doctor to come back for him, laughing merrily (and he remembers where he'd seen the paper birds before- Kyoto, with Rose and the Doctor smiling at each other like idiots, and him smiling with them, giving them a hug and a cheeky slap on the rear) as they walk through the TARDID door.

(Folding the sides into the middle, and again, then folding one side onto another. Three hundred and sixty-eight white paper birds, and you finally hear the sigh of the TARDIS again, but you're both changed men.)

When Jack realised that wasn't quite what he wanted, he continued thinking. He comes to think, _I don't want to fall in love. Don't let me fall in love. Don't let me see the one I love die again. Don't let me fall in love. _

He soon changes his mind.

_Let me die. Don't make me see him die. Let us have hot raunchy sex until the end of the universe._ _I don't want him to die. I don't want to see him die. _

He's only human.

(Nearly finished, the neck and tail of the crane fold up, and are halved, creating the wings. Five hundred and forty-three white paper cranes heralds disaster)

He changes his mind again, but only for a few months.

He frantically folds sheets of plain white printer paper, thinking his wish to himself. He's furious at himself for allowing himself to become attached. But he thinks and thinks and thinks, _bring Tosh and Owen back, bring them back, bring them back, bringthemback._

Torchwood three becomes just that. Three.

(Fold the wings up, fold again. Seven hundred and ninety-two cranes, and the world is ending again.)

He is a broken plaything made of wishes. _I didn't want him to die. I want him back. Please. Please. Take me instead, but bring him back. Bring all of them back. Steven didn't deserve it. He was completely innocent. It's all my fault. Steven, Ianto. Ianto. Steven._

His own flesh and blood, Stephen, murdered in front of his eyes. His heart and soul, Ianto, killed before him. One dying in his arms, one he couldn't touch.

(Fold the wings down, revealing that bloody triangle. Lower the tail, shape the beak. Finished. Stiff and brilliant. The cheap printer paper marked by inky hands. There are nine hundred and forty-nine cranes when he gives up.)

He's sees no point in wishing anymore. He wouldn't delude himself into believing he could possibly bring them back. He gathers all his cranes up, pausing for a moment to think of Toshiko and regret that he never once asked her what she was wishing for, before feeding them in handfuls to the fire. The paper browns, blackens, and curls in on itself, crying smoke which spirals in the air.

Standing, he makes his way to the hill where he'll see Gwen and Rhys for what seems like the last time.

In the fire grate, a thousand paper birds die.


End file.
